No Excess vs Higher Excess (on an old car)

Stoke

Just wondered what peoples thoughts were here. I have a pretty old car. It's not worth much at all (high mileage, not particularly good body condition) so the reality is, insurance will give me at most £400-£500 for a claim as almost any damage will write it off.

A £500 excess will save me £100 on my premium, but obviously if I bash it, I'll not be able to claim. However, with it being so old, is a £0 excess worth it? They'll take the car away, and they'll give me a few hundred quid. I might not even get £400, that's the reality of it.

Is the gamble of saving £100 worth it when the vehicle is so old?

Quentin

If you have NCD, then any fault claim will mean losing 2 years (usually from a max of 5), so making a claim over a max payout of £500 doesn't sound cost effective.


Do some dummy quotes with a higher excess (go as high as you can eg Swiftcover (not a recommendation) go up to £1000), and see if that makes the premium any cheaper

jimjames

I'm in similar position. Tried various combinations but above £250 it made no difference to the price.

Joe_Horner

We normally go with an excess as close to the value of the car as we can but it's always worth running quotes for low excess as well because some insurers don't quote above a certain excess.

We had this with my partner's new (to us) Mondeo. Because her no claims is still in use on her other car quotes were with zero no claims on this one, with a book value of around £500.

Any excess above 350 was getting quotes of around £290 but, by dropping the excess to 0, we were offered £240. The sweet spot seemed to be about £150 excess, where we got it down to £210.

Interestingly, the 6 years no claims would only have made about £30 a year difference for the same reason!

Stoke

Quentin wrote: »

If you have NCD, then any fault claim will mean losing 2 years (usually from a max of 5), so making a claim over a max payout of £500 doesn't sound cost effective.


Do some dummy quotes with a higher excess (go as high as you can eg Swiftcover (not a recommendation) go up to £1000), and see if that makes the premium any cheaper

But that's part of the point, I don't want to claim, the car isn't worth much....

jimjames

Stoke wrote: »

But that's part of the point, I don't want to claim, the car isn't worth much....

That was exactly my reasoning too. With a low value car the only claim will be a write off, any minor damage will either be third party settlement or ignored/resolved myself. So higher excess made sense IF it reduces premium.

gilbert_and_sullivan

I tend to run a £300 total excess on each of our cars, just a figure i'm happy with, but then i'm old enough and in the right job and postcode to get well priced car insurance.

For total damage under about £1000 i'd rather not make a claim anyway, not suggesting anyone else should do it like this.

Rolandtheroadie

Last time I took out insurance, strange but true, an increased excess increased the premium.

caliew

Hi I have worked in the insurance sector for a number of years but just left for childcare reasons. Excesses are personal choice, a 0 voluntary excess could potentially be a slightly higher premium but some might not be much in it between say a 0 voluntary and a 250 voluntary and again might not be much difference up to a 500 voluntary. Beware because there are not just voluntary excesses there could be underwriter compulsory excesses so you need to add both together so you know exactly what you pay in a claim situation. It's weighing up risk what you would like to pay up front in a claim situation against the likelihood of being in a claim situation - but hindsight is a wonderful thing? It's your choice.

caliew

In response to Rolandtheroadie an increase of excess increasing premium it's because underwriters may think that you are more at risk putting in a higher excess on premium, very rare but it does happen so quite rightly so for pointing out that.